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Business Daily

The adaptive fashion revolution

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4816 Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2022

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Adaptive fashion, or stylish clothes for people who have a disability have not always been widely available, especially for those who use a wheelchair. Recently though, a fashion revolution has begun.

We hear from the women pushing the industry to change. British Somali Faduma Farah launched a fellowship for designers to come up with an inclusive collection that would be modelled at London Fashion Week. We speak to Faduma and the winning designer Harriet Eccleston, as well as stylist and influencer Heide Herkes who was one of the models featured on the runway during the show – the first ever to include wheelchair users. Plus, Maria O'Sullivan-Abeyratne, CEO and founder of Adaptista, tells us about the inclusive online shopping platform she’s building for the adaptive fashion market.

Presenter: Vivienne Nunis Producer: Izzy Greenfield Image: Faduma Farah, founder of the Faduma Fellowship; Credit: BBC

Transcript

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0:00.0

Anyone that helps people who are accused of sorcery are also blamed for being sorceress.

0:05.9

Lives less ordinary from the BBC World Service.

0:09.1

Real people with extraordinary stories.

0:12.0

I started having a strength in me.

0:14.8

I have to stand up for other women.

0:16.9

Find out more at the end of this podcast.

0:20.1

You're listening to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

0:24.6

I'm Vivienne Nunes, and today we're looking at a market that has been ignored by the fashion industry for decades.

0:31.5

Adaptive fashion or stylish clothes for people with a disability were an impossible dream for millions. But recently, a fashion

0:40.1

revolution has begun. The colours, the fabrics, the materials and how they flattered the body

0:47.7

and the uses of them. I haven't seen anything like this. We hear from the women forcing the

0:53.5

fashion industry to change. We're living. We're still alive. We hear from the women forcing the fashion industry to change.

0:55.7

We're living. We're still alive. We need to feel good. Let us enjoy dressing up just like anybody

1:02.8

else. Fashion for all. That's Business Daily from the BBC.

1:10.8

Fashion is big business.

1:13.3

This year, the global industry is expected to reach $1.7 trillion.

1:18.5

But there's a big consumer base who are missing out.

1:22.2

The World Health Organization estimates more than a billion people live with some form of disability.

1:28.4

And yet the fashion industry is struggling to cater for those consumers.

1:32.4

Hi Vivian, my name's Anusha Kootigan.

1:34.6

I'm the head of advisory at Vogue Business and I'm coming to you from London.

1:39.6

Anusha is a fashion strategist and analyst.

...

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